Three's A Crowd
by SweetDeamon
Summary: There are a great many hurdles for Tonks to overcome should she want her gradually blossoming relationship with Remus to work. Such as his insecurities, society's prejudices, clashing schedules, nosy Order members, the War...oh, and his slightly psychotic ex-girlfriend who appears to have it in for Tonks right from the very beginning... RLNT, RLOC. Includes some MWPP! ON HIATUS.
1. Whiskey Shots and Lollipops

_Note: Should I be starting another chaptered story right now? No. Not really! But since both other main 'fics are pretty dark right now, here's something a little silly and light-hearted! _

_This is a very stupid response to **tt crews** wondering how Tonks would react to the reappearance of an old love into Remus' life. Therefore, I would like to apologise to you, **tt crews**, in advance if should read this story...! :-) _

_Note: I do not own Harry Potter._

**1: Whiskey Shots and Lollipops**

As she came to lean against the grimy bar, lips pursed together in contemplation of the dusty array of bottles lined up upon the shelves opposite, Nymphadora Tonks leant to bump her shoulder against her fellow Order member's arm and, without so much as a glance sideways at him, greeted:

"Fancy seeing you here! Do you come here often?"

Remus Lupin frowned down at the unidentifiable sticky patch of wood that he had narrowly avoided pressing his elbow in some five minutes earlier when he had entered the pub.

"Not if I can help it." he mumbled, not bothering to look up at his new companion, and Tonks sniggered and observed a little too loudly:

"Me neither! It's bloody awful, isn't it?"

A distinctly bad-tempered grunt came from somewhere further down the bar, and Remus winced.

Tonks stifled a snigger as she looked round to spot Aberforth Dumbledore pausing in his polishing of a glass, the rag so filthy that it was difficult to tell what colour it was supposed to be, in order to shoot the young Auror an equally filthy look.

"Alright, Aberforth?" Tonks called cheerfully, offering him a wave for good measure. "Butterbeer when you're ready, please! D'you want one, Remus?"

"No thank you." the werewolf said, nodding to the bottle in front of him that was still half full.

Abandoning the glass he was polishing, that Tonks couldn't help was a lost cause anyway, Aberforth shuffled over to retrieve a bottle of the amber beverage, and once he had set it down before her with a loud clunk, he informed Tonks sourly:

"Six sickles."

The Auror dug around in her pocket for a moment before consenting to counting out six little silver coins into his hand, before reaching to retrieve the bottle.

"Thanks." she told him brightly, taking a swig, and no sooner had he shuffled out of earshot Remus gave a snigger and admitted:

"That's twice what he charged me."

"I know." Tonks admitted, not apparently caring one bit. Indeed she sounded vaguely amused to tell him: "I'm pretty sure he hates me!" She glanced down at the nearest bar stool, eying it in consideration before deciding it was safe to perch upon it.

"Everybody's late." Remus told her, gesturing around at the bar that was almost entirely void of life, save for a few sorry looking individuals lurking with their drinks in the dingy corners.

"I know." Tonks said again, pausing to take another swig of butterbeer. "They're not coming, actually."

"They're not?" Remus said, frowning deeply. "Since when?"

"Since last night. Mad-Eye cancelled the meeting."

Despite his vague annoyance at having been left in the dark, Remus rolled his eyes.

"It wasn't a proper meeting, it was drinks for Arthur's birthday." he pointed out. "Alastor was never going to come anyway..."

"Oh, I know." Tonks said, grinning broadly as she turned to face him properly, wincing a little apologetically when her knees collided with his hip. "Arthur cancelled it, I suppose. We're settling for drinks at Headquarters tomorrow night instead. For one thing, Misery Guts was sulking because he can't leave the house with us, and then Mad-Eye went sort of mental about us all meeting up in such numbers outside of Headquarters and blah, blah, blah..." she pulled a face, sniggering. "Anyway, Mad-Eye told me to tell everybody not to bother coming. Which I did."

"Evidently not." Remus said, offering her a raised eyebrow, and she leant back in her seat in surprise as if she had just lain eyes upon him for the first time.

"Oh bugger!" she exclaimed in mock-annoyance. "Didn't I owl you along with everybody else?"

"Evidently not." he said again, fighting to keep a broad grin from his face.

Tonks sighed dramatically.

"I knew I'd forget somebody!" she exclaimed, slapping a hand down upon the table in emphasis, only to promptly regret it because when she lifted her hand she found something sticky appeared to have smeared itself across her palm. Hastily reaching to wipe whatever it was upon the front of her jeans she offered the werewolf a raised eyebrow and suggested: "Well, since we're already here, and since we've already had _one_ drink...?"

Remus had already turned to gesture to Aberforth for a couple of glasses.

"You know," Remus observed a long while later, glass of Fire whiskey balanced somewhat precariously upon his knee as the two of them sat squeezed onto a small bench in one corner of the pub, "It really is such bad luck, how often people forget to tell me when meetings get cancelled."

"Hmm." Tonks mumbled, stifling a snigger into her glass as she raised it to her lips.

"Anybody would think it happens on purpose..." Remus theorised knowingly, and the pink hair witch beside him promptly slammed her glass down upon the rickety table, making it shudder a little more than she had probably intended, so that she could turn to look at him with eyes as wide as a pair of snitches.

"What are you trying to suggest?" she cried, rather ruining her shock by promptly dissolving into laughter.

"I'm not trying to suggest anything." Remus insisted, leaning back against the wall and eying the ceiling in a non-too innocent fashion. "But...you know..."

"Do I?"

"Well I suspect you do, Tonks. It being all your doing in the first place..."

Tonks laughed so hard that she was forced to bury her face in her hands in an attempt to stifle her amusement.

"Alright, so I might know." she admitted once she had halted her hysterics. "And you know what's going on too, right?"

"Right."

"D'you reckon Snuffles knows?"

"Probably. He's not stupid."

"What about the others?"

"I don't think you're fooling anybody, Tonks."

"Me? I think it's _we_, actually!"

"It's entirely your doing."

"Right...I'm holding you prisoner, am I? Making you spend time with me?"

"I don't know, I've not dared to try and leave before..."

Tonks hit him.

"Carry on like that," she threatened, "and I'll take you home with me too!"

Remus looked genuinely alarmed. Apparently he didn't quite know what to say, so he downed his drink and muttered something about braving a trip to the toilets.

Tonks watched him cross the room, eyebrows knotting together in consideration.

They had been "accidentally" bumping into one another like this most weeks for the past couple of months. They chatted about anything, everything and nothing at all, made one another laugh more than was probably natural in such dark times, and inevitably she ended up flirting quite shamelessly with him.

Sometimes he didn't seem to mind, indeed he'd flirt straight back and Tonks would very nearly find herself uttering some sort of grand and heartfelt declaration that might very well ruin their friendship in just a few short syllables.

Sometimes he seemed to mind her flirting a whole lot and Tonks would think she'd never find herself uttering anything grand and heartfelt at all because it all seemed utterly hopeless.

It was true about Sirius and the rest of the Order. Tonks was pretty sure they were all quite aware that Remus was always away from Headquarters on her days off, that they knew just how much time their two resident shape-shifters spent in one another's company.

They had no doubt noticed that she had an uncanny ability to arrive for meetings at the same time as he finally reappeared back from wherever he had been all day.

Or that he seemed to know her work schedule better than the rota for guard duty at the Department of Mysteries.

Or that they looked at one another across the table at meetings and smiled an awful lot...

Quite frankly, Tonks mused, it was a miracle that nobody had said anything about it yet. Especially Sirius, who was entirely incapable of keeping his big mouth shut about...well..._anything_, actually.

How on earth Sirius Black had come to be part of a _secret_ organisation, Tonks honestly didn't know.

Tonks desperately didn't want anybody to say anything at all. Not yet. It would be much too early, much too soon. She could just imagine how dreadful it would all be. There would be a sudden, dreadful expectation that they be together. All those doubts that Remus had about the concept of the two of them, and Tonks was pretty sure there were a lot of them, would come tumbling down upon the careful yet tentative relationship they were gradually edging towards. It would be smothered and ruined beyond repair...

And Tonks wasn't sure what she would do if that were to happen. She had found her life quite consumed by Remus Lupin these past few months, planning her time around finding ways to see him, forgetting to plan anything else because she found herself contemplating precisely what it was she thought about him, what she felt...

She was pretty sure she was in love with him.

She was only _pretty sure_ because she didn't think she'd ever been truly in love with anybody before, which made defining the whole thing a little bit tricky and downright confusing.

She did know for sure, though, that she had never been so sure about an almost-relationship in her whole entire life.

Relationships, Moody said, were dangerous. And almost-relationships were, apparently, even more dangerous.

_Don't you ever let me catch you mooning over some fancy man or anything of the like_, he'd snap at her every once in a while. _Don't spend all day daydreaming or trying to figure out feelings or love or that nonsense!_ _It'll be the end of you! Mark my words!_

Tonks had once suggested she perhaps ought just drag men at random off the street into her house and have her wicked way with them instead, but the surly old Auror had very nearly had a fit and she suspected she narrowly avoided a rather long stint living the life of a dancing ferret.

To be honest, a twenty minute lecture on _the dangers of shagging the enemy_ wasn't something Tonks had thought she would ever find herself being forced to listen to. Even from him.

Still, she felt quite amused that, despite the fact that she probably did a whole lot of mooning, daydreaming and general contemplation of love, she had not heard any similarly irked speeches from the grizzled old Auror for at least a month or so, which in turn suggested that he was in actual fact not entirely aware of what was going on.

For somebody who was so paranoid and watchful, he could seemingly be awfully blind.

As she traced a thoughtful finger around the edge of her glass, Tonks wondered if Moody had ever been in love.

Or if anybody had ever been mental enough to be in love with Moody.

She wasn't sure which was the more fascinating question.

A less fascinating question, owing to the fact that she was pretty sure she could imagine a whole load of hideous hexes he might bestow upon her, was what would he do if she ever had the nerve to ask him?

She was just contemplating the fact that it was probably impossible for somebody as paranoid and obsessive as Moody to be born that way, leading her to the somewhat disturbing possibility of some semblance of a love life during his school years at least, when Remus returned, dropping back down into the seat beside her having retrieved another drink from the bar.

"You're looking a tad pensive." he observed, and she agreed:

"Mm."

She waited for him to ask what she was thinking about, but apparently he found the prospect of finding out a little too nerve racking to actually do so, so she consented to asking him:

"Do you think Mad-Eye's ever had sex?"

Remus choked on his fire whiskey.

Tonks waited patiently for him to recover. After a good moment she began to wonder if he ever would do, and another few moments later she began to strongly suspect that the answer to that question was no.

"Wh...what?" he finally managed to splutter, and she shrugged and said:

"I was just wondering."

"You were?"

She thought about this question for a long moment, tapping her fingers upon the table in consideration before deciding:

"No, not really. Not for a second."

Remus looked somewhat relieved to hear so, but he seemingly still felt after such a conversation he was in need of another drink, so he reached to pluck the glass up from in front of her, finishing the last of it off. It made him cough. Tonks was rather glad to be relieved of her drink. She was beginning to suspect that she might be a little drunk.

"It's getting a bit late." he said, and she glanced over towards the window to see how dark it was outside, before recalling that it always looked dark outside when a window was so utterly filthy.

"D'you have the time?" she asked.

Remus reached to take hold of her by the elbow, pulling her sleeve up her arm a little so that he could examine the watch on her wrist.

There was no doubt about it, Tonks realised, she was definitely rather tipsy.

"It's almost eleven." Remus observed, offering her a raised eyebrow. "Shall I see you to your door?"

Not only was she drunk, he seemed to be very much aware that she was, too. Tonks frowned a little at this realisation and decided:

"Nah, I'll be alright."

She didn't fancy him watching her struggling to remember how to get past the protective wards she'd placed over the house, or how well she navigated the steps up to the door, either...

"Are you sure?"

"Yep!"

Tonks tried very hard not to stagger as she got to her feet, and was pleased to find that she seemed vaguely stable, which was quite impressive for her even if she were sober. She wondered if she was slurring her words at all...

"No, you're fine." Remus told her, and she wondered why she had managed to wonder aloud.

They bid a scowling Aberforth a cheerful goodbye and stepped out into the chilly evening air outside. Tonks failed to suppress a shiver. The fogginess that had been slowly seeping into her brain seemed to lift somewhat at the fierce breeze that whistled down the narrow street, and as they set off round the corner onto Hogsmeade's main road she reached to slip a hand through the crook of Remus' arm.

"Can we go for a walk?" she asked, and though he shot a slightly baffled sideways glance at her she felt suddenly as if a great warmth had ignited in her chest as he reached to pull her hand further through until they were walking with precious few millimetres between them. She felt a little disappointed when he let go of her hand again, only to promptly distract herself wondering precisely what sort of mood he was in that night. She tried to do the maths; taking into account the fact that he'd chickened out of flirting too much, but didn't seem to mind strolling along arm in arm now as if they really were together.

She decided those two facts added together equalled...

Merlin only knew what they equalled. It was dreadfully frustrating and, Tonks thought, a little frightening too.

Because this was all like some sort of ticking time bomb, if she didn't do something it was all going to explode. Sirius wasn't going to keep his mouth shut forever, and when it all stopped being a careful secret...!

"Tonks?"

Just the thought of it...!  
"Tonks...?"

She couldn't even imagine it, it would be like having a knife plunged into her chest...

"Tonks!"

Her heart ripped straight out of...

Tonks blinked.

Apparently they had stopped walking.

"Hm?" she said, turning round to offer Remus a questioning look.

"Are you alright?" he asked, frowning deeply, and for a split second she considered informing him that no, she wasn't alright in the slightest, in fact she was downright terrified of their relationship, or their lack of relationship or almost-relationship or whatever the hell it was, and she probably would never be alright about it until she got to kiss him...repeatedly...or until she could tell him that she loved him without him apparating for the hills...or until they were married and he was stuck with her for good...

Married?

Tonks swallowed.

Bloody hell...

She'd not really thought as far as marriage before, really. Of course she'd thought about being with him for the rest of eternity, which was sort of the same thing but just a bit less formal...

Tonks didn't really do formal. Or at least she hadn't a couple of seconds earlier...

This new fantasy was a shame really, she realised, because it only added an extra thing she might have to lose if she didn't get things right...quickly...

She was, and always had been, quite tempted just to snog him to see if that helped, or at least to see if he snogged her back and if it was as good as she suspected it might be...

He'd asked her a question, she seemed to recall...

She couldn't remember what it was, so she settled on a smile and a shrug.

"You looked pained." he said, scrunching his face up in imitation, and Tonks mused that walking along the street like that was probably rather unattractive.

"Did I?" she wondered vaguely, frowning a little, and he offered her a raised eyebrow. She decided it was probably a good idea to change the subject. "Where are we walking to, then?" she asked, grinning broadly, and he confessed:

"I hadn't anywhere specific in mind."

"Shrieking Shack?" she suggested, picking the one destination that was furthest away without becoming classed as outside of Hogsmeade.

Remus sniggered.

"What is this?" he wondered, tugging her sideways a little to avoid a large puddle in the middle of the street. "A fourth year Hogsmeade date?"

"If you like."

"In which case we ought hurry back to our dormitories because I'm pretty sure if we get caught out of bed, out of school even, at this time of night we'll be in detention for a millennia."

"Yeah? Chicken, are you?"

"Are you one of those dreadfully naughty girls my mother warns me not to have anything to do with?"

"Are you one of those dreadfully boring and sensible prefect boys my mother tells me I should have everything to do with?"

They both laughed and Tonks found herself quite taken with their little game of make-believe, so she asked:

"So do you take all the girls to see the wonders and mystique of Britain's most haunted building, then?"

"Oh yes, all the time."

"I'm not special at all then, no?"

"No, definitely not."

She gave her head an exaggerated toss, yanking her hand free from his arm.

"Well I'm not sure I like the sound of that very much!" she told him, narrowly avoiding slipping in another puddle in her indignation, and he was forced to grab hold of her arm to stop her from taking a tumble.

"Sorry..." he sniggered, and she informed him:

"You better make it up to me, else I'll go back to the school and tell all the other girls what a crap date you are!"

"I'm not sure I'd care."

"No?"

"Well no..."

"Why not?"

He opened his mouth to reply, only apparently to think better of it.

They carried on up the street and turned off to head up the hill towards the customary view point by the old gate that had been hanging of it's hinges for as long as Tonks could remember. She felt somewhat disappointed that his sensibilities had gotten the better of him yet again and found herself wondering if he'd ever manage to lose them long enough for the two of them to make some sort of progression...

Or if they'd ever go on a date that wasn't a pretend one between a couple of school children. Most of their meetings felt a bit like dates, but were never actually officially named as such...

Once again Tonks found herself musing that formality was fast becoming more her thing.

They came to a halt at the end of the lane, and she made a show of staring up at the Shrieking Shack until she noticed that Remus was staring at her instead.

"If you go back and tell the other girls I'm a crap date that's alright with me." he told her, sounding much too serious for make-believe this time round. He rocked somewhat apprehensively back on his heels for a moment before admitting: "Just as long as you think otherwise I honestly couldn't care less."

He made it sound a bit like a question.

Tonks didn't attempt to answer for a long moment, she was much too busy staring at him, surprised and utterly delighted. She supposed this was probably the right time to play it cool and say something like...

"You're the best Hogsmeade date I've ever had. Ever."

…something not like that.

He looked a little embarrassed, but she felt relieved when he gave a half chuckle and mumbled:

"Oh...good!"

The fact that he hadn't run for the hills, possibly combined with the fact that she was still a little tipsy, persuaded her to admit:

"And if this were a proper date it wouldn't be half bad either. I really like all the non-dates we've had recently...except that they're non-dates and not actual ones...that...that's not so good...really..."

She wondered if she were blushing as furiously as she thought she was, or if it were the combination of cold and fire whiskey. She didn't usually get very tongue-tied around him. But then again he didn't usually stick around long enough for one of them to strike up a conversation quite as tricky as this one. Perhaps running for the hills had finally gotten too tiresome for him.

Apparently he couldn't think of something to say because he was too busy shifting his feet rather awkwardly, and liquid courage persuaded Tonks to throw all caution to the wind and tell him:

"Listen, I um...I know you think...well I know you aren't really that sure about...about me..."

"It's not like that." he interrupted, abruptly finding his voice, lips twitching towards a smile. "Don't imagine that for a second, I think you're wonderful..."

He thought she was wonderful.

Tonks rather liked the sound of that, and yet she hurriedly held up a hand to silence him.

"Is this some sort of version of the It's Not You, It's Me speech?" she asked, because she wasn't quite sure she would resist hexing him if it was, and he frowned in a way that suggested that was precisely what it was but he didn't want to admit it.

"No, of course it isn't."

"Oh good."

"It's more of a...It's Not You Or Me, It's Us speech."

Tonks had no idea what one of those was, and she told him so. His expression made her suspect that he didn't know what one of those was either.

"The thing is, Tonks," he said, doing a very good impression of knowing what on earth he was talking about. "I...I do like you, I really do...but...well..."

"They're the same thing, aren't they? The speeches?" she realised flatly.

Remus puffed his cheeks, defeated.

"They're very similar." he admitted sheepishly.

Tonks wasn't quite sure what to say to that. All she knew was that she had to do something and quite frankly after two months or so of all this she was completely out of ideas...

So she kissed him.

He seemed remarkably unsurprised.

She flung her arms around his neck, rising up upon her toes and very nearly crumpled against him in relief when he threw his arms around her waist in response and kissed her back.

She wasn't sure how long they stood there in the increasingly howling wind, hold upon one another desperately tight, she was much too busy kissing him fervently...

In true it was probably less than a minute later that he leant back, grip around her waist slackening, and in an instant Tonks found herself feeling a little terrified of what might happen next.

"I've guard duty tomorrow morning." he informed her a little breathlessly, and it was all she could do to mumble:

"Oh, right..."

He leant forwards a little and for a moment she thought he might kiss her again, but instead he let go of her in favour of shoving his hands deep into his pockets.

"Be safe." he murmured, as if the prospect of leaving her to her own devices made him in some way nervous.

"Mm." she said, and she drew breath to give him similar instruction only for him to take a large step backwards and disapparate with a soft pop.

For a long moment Tonks simply stood, staring at the spot where he had been standing, wondering what she had done, what he had done, what _they_ had done and where it left them now...

She suddenly sense movement behind her and she turned a little sluggishly round to squint through the darkness back down the lane. With a response time like that, Moody would probably skin her alive...

A woman was standing just a short distance away, one hand upon the ramshackle wall that ran at the lane's side. Leaning upon it heavily, she appeared to be sucking a lollipop of some description, staring at Tonks with wide eyes.

Tonks offered the stranger a suitably abashed smile. She was pretty sure she'd just been caught snogging a little too enthusiastically in a public place, and though she didn't particularly care she decided to have the good grace to look at least a little embarrassed about it. She wondered how long the woman had been watching for, and found the idea that almost any length of time was a little bit creepy.

The woman had a round, almost child-like face, though Tonks suspected she was somewhat older than Tonks was herself, and a mop of frizzy blonde hair that seemed to stick out at odd angles. She was dressed entirely in black with heavy boots and a rather frilly dress that Tonks was pretty sure she wouldn't be seen dead in herself. She looked distinctly unimpressed by what she had witnessed, so Tonks decided to try and be friendly.

"It's a nice view, isn't it?" she called, gesturing to the rather bleak hill behind her with the dilapidated shack perched upon it's top.

"You rather ruin it, actually." the woman informed her, her voice rather high pitched and over-emotional. Tonks supposed that was supposed to be an insult of some kind, but it had been flung at her in such an odd manner that she didn't really feel terribly offended, just bemused.

"Sorry," she said, taking a few steps forward back towards the lane and the woman who was scowling at her. "It's just...well you don't really expect an audience here at this time of night, do you? Nobody comes up here at nighttime usually..."

"Do it all the time do you?" the woman asked, and Tonks was just biting her tongue against proudly announcing that she hoped it became a regular thing when the woman promptly burst into tears.

As the strange woman dropped the lollipop she was holding to the ground in order to bury her face in her hands, Tonks took another tentative step forward.

"Are you alright?" she asked, trying to sound a little more concerned and a little less confused by the whole situation.

"Do you think you'd be alright? If you were me?" the woman cried, and Tonks wanted to theorize that no, she probably wouldn't judging from the state of her, but instead she said:

"Can I get you a tissue or something?"

"I've b...been waiting f...for...for such a long time!" the woman wailed, shoulders shuddering. "I...I've been w...waiting and waiting for him to come back! And...and I knew he would...I knew it...! Daddy says to forget him but...but I knew! I KNEW!"

"I'm sorry..." Tonks found herself saying, fumbling around in her pockets in a vain attempt to locate a clean tissue or a handkerchief.

"And...and then I saw him! At last I saw him! And I spent...spent all evening w...waiting for him to come out of the pub and then...then _you_ were with him!"

Something in Tonks' head clicked and her confusion became a little less intense...

But still...what?

"You were waiting for Remus?" she attempted to clarify, attempting to recall seeing this odd woman anywhere between here and the Hog's Head and failing to remember all that much at all.

At the sound of Remus' name, the woman suddenly straightened up, her teary expression bordering on murderous as she shrieked:

"YES, REMUS! WHO ELSE?"

Tonks very nearly took a step backwards. It was rather like being squawked at by some variety of giant and extremely bad tempered parrot. It made Tonks wonder if there was any chance of people having ever been inbred with mandrakes...

"What do you think you were doing, anyway?" the woman demanded, taking a step forward until there was precious room between them. "Who do you think you are INTERFERING?"

There was no doubt about it, Tonks realised, this woman was stir crazy. She found it somewhat difficult to imagine Remus having any sort of connection to her whatsoever...

"I have no idea what you're talking about..." Tonks admitted, only for the woman's hands to ball into fists and she shrieked:

"We were perfectly happy before you came along!"

Tonks was pretty sure that a moment earlier she had claimed not to have seen Remus in years...

"Well I'll tell you something!" the hysterical woman cried. "You won't spoil what we have! We love one another!"

Tonks felt her mouth fall open a little as she scrambled around her mind in an attempt to make some sort of sense of what was being said.

She concluded that she appeared to have run into a psychotic ex-girlfriend of one form or another.

It had to be an ex-girlfriend, it was difficult enough to believe Remus had dated somebody so utterly mental to begin with, let alone that he would be now. Not to mention the fact that she couldn't think of any particular time that he was ever unaccounted for, when he might disappear off to spend time with this nutcase...

"WELL?" the woman demanded, giving her foot an infantile little stamp. "What do you have to say for yourself?"

Tonks pursed her lips together in consideration for a moment, deciding:

"I'm sure there's been some sort of...misunderstanding...your name is...?"

"Claudia Honeyduke!" the maniac woman snapped, as if it were obvious. "And who are you?"

Tonks thought it was probably best not to answer that one.

"When was the last time you saw Remus, then?" she asked, trying to sound in some way casual, only to grimace a little when the sound of Remus' name yet again seemed to make the woman puff up like some sort of startled pigeon.

"He said he'd see me again soon!"

"Right...and when did he say that?"

"Last time I was with him!"

"And when were you last with him?"

"I've been with him a whole lot longer than you, I can tell you that!"

Tonks couldn't help but wonder if she was making all of this up.

"Well," she decided uncertainly, "if you like I can um...I can let him know you were waiting for him when I see him next...ask him to...owl you or...something..."

"Absolutely not!" Claudia Honeyduke cried, taking an abrupt step forward so that she could glower a little more effectively. "You stay away from him!"

"That might be a bit difficult, to be honest..." Tonks mused aloud, thinking of the Order meeting that was scheduled the following evening, and how she planned on messing with the guard duty rota once everybody had left for the evening so that she and Remus would end up on a double shift that weekend...

"Well you had better try harder, hadn't you? Or else!" Claudia snapped.

Tonks frowned deeply.

"Are you threatening me?" she wondered, because to be honest she was struggling to understand a single thing that had happened since Remus had apparated back to Headquarters a few minutes earlier...

And all of a sudden everything happened all at once. Claudia Honeyduke let out a horrible, choking shriek of fury and before Tonks could blink she felt something distinctly fist-shaped colliding with her eye...

At the flood of pain that engulfed her face, Tonks' instinctive thoughts were of escape...

She was lying sprawled upon damp, dirty cobbles and for a long moment, Tonks had no idea how she had gotten there.

Opening the one eye that wasn't throbbing painfully, the young Auror found herself gazing up at the grim, dull exterior of Grimmauld Place and let out a groan of relief.

She liked to think that her ability to apparate to safety with only a split second of thought was probably something Moody would be impressed with. But as she reached gingerly to prod experimentally at her eye, which appeared to have swollen up quite spectacularly, Tonks realised that she would never be able to relay this story to Moody, or indeed anybody...

No indeed, relaying a tale of being punched in the face by a psychotically jealous love rival wasn't really the sort of thing she wanted to do over a cup of tea and biscuits. Or in any situation involving conversation at all.

Tonks didn't bother to stand up for a good couple of minutes. She gazed blearily up at the cloudy sky above and attempted to run over precisely what had just happened in her mind.

Claudia Honeyduke. Tonks had never heard of her before. Not that she supposed she would have done. Past relationships or romantic encounters weren't really the sorts of things she and Remus had talked about before...

She wished they had done. Because she was curious to hear how on earth Remus had come to have anything to do with somebody so clearly crazy in the first place...

Except she didn't want to ask. Not now. Not when she had a large Claudia's-fist-sized swelling on her face. It was just...embarrassing, really...

Tonks couldn't ever remember having been punched like that before. She'd been hexed and jinxed on countless occasions...but punched...! What kind of bloody witch was this woman, anyway?

She was clearly completely and utterly delusional!

Then again, did Tonks have much right to think such a thing when she might just be delusional herself? She wasn't entirely sure whether or not she had the right to feel so indignant yet. That still needed thinking about...she and Remus still needed thinking about...

Much too groggy to think about apparating home, she dragged herself to her feet and stumbled up to the front door of Number Twelve, determined to find a bedroom to hide in without being spotted and questioned about why she looked such a mess. She recalled Remus' request that she stay safe, and felt the urge to laugh somewhat hysterically because she was pretty sure he'd been thinking of the risks of Death Eater attacks, not being punched in the face by downright mental ex...

She stumbled non-too quietly down the hallway and set about creeping up the stairs. Loudly. The door to the drawing room had been left wide open and she was just about to make a dash for the next flight of stairs when Sirius' voice called:

"Tonks...?"

Tonks froze, wincing as she stared desperately up the stairs she had about to escape up.

"Hi!" she greeted, refusing to turn around and look into the room.

"You alright?" Sirius asked cheerfully, and Tonks grimaced to hear Remus murmur:

"She's had a few."

"Shut up, you!" she snapped, very nearly spinning around to spot him so that she could scowl, but she refused to move a muscle.

"D'you want another?" Sirius asked, sounding amused, and she heard the sound of a cork being pulled free from a bottle.

"Um...no thanks. I'm...I'm..."

"Already pissed?" Sirius put in helpfully, and despite resenting such a suggestion she decided to agree:

"Yeah, exactly."

She was about to mutter a good night of some description when she heard Sirius shift in his seat, before asking rather knowingly:

"So! How come you know what she's been up to then, Moony?"

Panicked, Tonks promptly spun around to give a laugh and exclaim:

"Because I'm related to you, Sirius! We're all a bunch of alcoholics, us Blacks, aren't we? It's not difficult for Remus to guess!"

She waited for somebody to laugh too, but instead both Sirius and Remus just stared at her, their eyes growing wide.

Bugger, Tonks thought.

Sirius was sat in a moth-eaten armchair, grip upon the bottle in his hands distinctly slack as he stared, and Remus had abruptly sat bolt upright upon the sofa.

"Bloody hell..." Sirius began, only for Remus to interrupt:

"What happened?"

He sounded genuinely alarmed, unlike Sirius who looked amused rather than anything else.

Tonks opened and closed her mouth a few times, but no words came out.

"Come and sit down." Remus told her, rising to his feet and hurrying over to usher her reluctantly into the room, and Sirius asked:

"Now can I give her a drink?"

"I'm fine, honestly." Tonks insisted, feeling her face bloom with colour. And it was true, she was. It was, after all, just a black eye and nothing else...

Nevertheless she let Remus deposit her upon the sofa, and as he sunk down onto the cushions beside her, Tonks wondered what elaborate lie she was going to come up with to explain this one. It would be easy to babble about Death Eaters, only if she were to do that they'd insist she relay the whole tale to the rest of the Order the following evening and Moody would probably lecture them all for a million years and begin a pointless discussion on what a bunch of Death Eaters had been doing in Hogsmeade...

She could tell them she had tripped, smacked her face into a fence post or something similarly hefty. They'd believe that quite easily. But then Sirius would tease her something rotten.

Not that he wouldn't do the same if she were to tell the truth, mind you. At least with the truth she could find out who the bloody hell Claudia Honeyduke was...

"So go on!" Sirius insisted, sounding worryingly excited. "Tell us what happened!"

And despite her sheer embarrassment about the whole thing, Tonks found herself jabbing a finger in Remus' direction and informing her cousin:

"His maniac of an ex-girlfriend just freaked out and smacked me in the face!"

Sirius' expression grew instantly gleeful.

"MOONY'S ex-girlfriend?" he attempted to clarify as at Tonks' side Remus visibly paled.

"Girlfriend, ex-girlfriend, crazed stalker...whatever..." Tonks mumbled, utterly at a loss as to which noun was most appropriate, and Sirius instantly asked:

"Was it the lovely Lollie Honeyduke?"

"Shut up, Padfoot." Remus instantly muttered, and as she flopped back against the cushions so that she could look sideways at him, Tonks recalled:

"It's Claudia, actually. Why, are there several?"

"Ex-girlfriends, maybe." Sirius smirked. "But Lollie...she's special..."

"Don't call her that." Remus muttered, reaching to rub a pained hand across his brow, and before Sirius could do anything except snigger, he asked: "How on earth did you manage to get her to punch you in the face?"

"It's not difficult, Moony mate, the girl's demented! Always has been..."

"Shut up, Padfoot."

"Well she was a bit upset," Tonks explained without much thought, "because she'd been waiting to ambush you when you left the pub, only I was with you and then she saw us kissing..."

"You what?" Sirius interrupted, and Tonks flinched, only for Remus to snap:

"Not now, Sirius! Tonks is telling us about Claudia."

"There's not a whole lot to tell." Tonks muttered irritably. "She's utterly nuts and I think if I hadn't apparated away she would have beaten me to death, or shoved that lollipop of hers down my throat and made me choke on it..."

"She had a lollipop?" Sirius cackled, slapping a hand down up the arm of his chair with a snigger. "That's bloody priceless!"

Remus seemed somewhat torn between burying his face in his hands and shooting Sirius the most disgusted look he could muster.

"I knew you'd never get rid of her for good!" Sirius said, waggling a finger in his best friend's direction. "I told you so!"

"No you didn't." Remus muttered irritably. "You told me to shag her along with everybody else..."

Tonks wondered whether Sirius had suggested that everybody had shagged Claudia, or that Remus ought shag everybody. Or both.

"I'm so sorry," Remus said into the palms of his hands. "I...I had no idea..."

"About women." Sirius suggested unhelpfully.

"...that she was still living round there or...or that..."

"She'd try and murder you."

"...that she'd seen us. If I had...well...I'd have..."

"Panicked."

"Sirius, shut up!"

"But you would panic! I would if she ever caught sight of _me_! Only an idiot wouldn't be utterly terrified of Lollie Honeyduke..."

"Don't call her that, for Merlin's sake!"

Tonks glanced wearily back and forth between the two of them, frowning deeply.

"So," she wondered, "Does anybody want to explain to me who on earth this woman actually is?"

"Oh, I do!" Sirius grinned, throwing a hand up to volunteer.

Remus simply groaned.


	2. So Sweet

_Note: This chapter turned out much shorter than I anticipated...or more to the point the first chapter was much longer than I anticipated! I also doubt that it is quite as funny, I'm afraid. But then again, it doesn't star a drunk Tonks, so the lack of humour was probably inevitable!_

_**There is M rated content in this chapter. Consider yourselves warned!**_

_**For any readers of the Meet the... stories** – I have a new poll up regarding the final chaptered story in the series, so feel free to go and vote! _

_Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter._

**2: So Sweet**

It spread through the corridors, classrooms and corridors of Hogwarts School like fiendfyre.

Such wildly shocking gossip even penetrated the peace and quiet of one of the deepest, most secluded corners of the school library, where Remus Lupin had been attempting to finish his Transfiguration homework undisturbed. He was just completing the opening paragraph when he heard what sounded rather like a small stampede amongst the bookshelves, and he looked up, failing not to sigh to see Sirius Black, James Potter and Peter Pettigrew pushing and shoving their way around the corner in an attempt to reach him first.

"MOONY!" Sirius cried, eyes wide as he elbowed James in the ribs in order to come to a skidding halt beside Remus' chair. "Where have you been all bloody afternoon? We've been looking all over for you!"

Remus opened his mouth to point out that he had only been in the library for about half an hour, but before he could say a word, James demanded to know:

"Have you heard?"

Again, Remus opened his mouth to respond, only for Peter to conclude:

"He hasn't."

"I can't believe you haven't heard!"

"EVERYBODY'S HEARD!"

"Except you. I can't believe you haven't heard..."

Just watching the three of them babble was, quite frankly, making Remus' head hurt. He attempting to hold up a hand to silence them, but they were much too busy arguing amongst themselves about whether or not Remus was the only person in the entire school who didn't know about..."it".

Remus tossed his quill down upon the desk and leant back in his chair, before consenting to half-shouting:

"What haven't I heard?"

The other Marauders abruptly stopped arguing and turned to stare at him, all three sucking in deep, excited breaths...

And then they all started speaking at once.

"Claudia Honeyduke!"

"That Hufflepuff girl!"

"The mental one..."

"With the hair..."

"Tony Whathisface..."

"Bell! Tony Bell from Ravenclaw!"

"Yeah, him! You'll never guess..."

"He's been going round telling everybody..."

"EVERYBODY! The WHOLE SCHOOL!"

"He told Claudia if she gave him a blow job in the broom cupboard on the second floor..."

"The third floor! It was the third floor!"

"...he'd give her a lollipop! And you'll never guess what!"

"SHE DID!"

"She did it! She dragged him into the broom cupboard and did it!"

"FOR A LOLLIPOP!"

At this triumphant conclusion, the three of them lapsed in to an expectant silence, waiting for Remus to say something.

"That's...utterly disgusting..." Remus mumbled, face contorting at the very notion, and Sirius grinned quite manically and exclaimed:

"I know! I always said she was mental!"

"You know," James said, leaning to nudge Remus with his elbow. "I think she likes you, Moony! Ever since McGonnogal split us up and made you sit next to her in Transfiguration last year..."

"Didn't you offer her chewing gum?" Peter recalled as Remus eyed his shoes with extreme interest, flinching when Sirius exclaimed:

"Damn! If you'd known she was such a _sucker_ for sweets back then you could've..."

"Shut up, Padfoot." Remus interrupted, desperately not wanting to hear the end of that sentence, and Sirius let out such a cackling laugh that he doubled over, clutching his stomach.

He didn't know a whole lot about Claudia Honeyduke, despite having sat next to her in Transfiguration for almost an entire term. They had probably spoken only a handful of words to each other, most of which could be whittled down to the phrases: _Hello, Can I borrow your pencil?, When did she say this homework is due?_, and_ See you later then_.

The longest conversation they had ever had, as far as Remus could recall, was when Professor McGonnogal had initially banished him to the seat beside her and even that had been rather brief because thanks to his banishment he had been in a rather poor mood:

_Hi!_

_Hello._

_I'm Claudia._

_I know._

_And you're Remus._

_I know._

_Been a naughty boy, have you?_

_No._

_I didn't think so. You're much too nice! Ooooh! Is that gum? Can I have some?_

_Um..._

_Pretty, pretty please with a cherry on top!_

_Er..._

_Come on! I said you were nice! You're not going to prove me wrong, are you?_

_It's my last one..._

_And you're giving it to me! Oh! You're such a sweetie!_

He'd handed over the loot just to shut her up because her voice was dreadfully irritating and he hadn't wanted to risk being stuck in detention for another evening just for talking. When Professor McGonnogal had caught her chewing the gum just a minute or so later he had not been sure whether to feel pleased or very irritated. Eventually he had settled on irritated because for one thing that was just the sort of mood he was in, and, more importantly, it seemed like a waste of gum. He made it his business not to speak to her much after that because her voice was not only irritating, but the way she looked at him when she spoke was somewhat terrifying. He had never quite managed to decide why...

"Well," James said, reaching to straighten his robes before running a hand through his messy hair, causing it to stick up at rather odd angles, "I'm going for a walk down by the lake! Who wants to come?"

"We just went for a walk by the lake, Prongs!" Sirius pointed out irritably, but James merely asked:

"And? What's your point?"

"My point is if Evans wasn't down there ten minutes ago she probably won't be there now! It's almost dinner time..."

"But Angela said they were all going down there to study and..."

"Angela lied, Prongs." Remus pointed out, barely resisting the urge to sigh as he reached to retrieve his quill, eyes back upon his unfinished essay, and as James positively scowled at such an idea, Sirius agreed:

"I wouldn't put it past her, she's a dreadful liar, that Angela Finch! Octavia Jones said she wouldn't go to Hogsmeade with me because Angela told her I was a crap kisser because I tried to stick my tongue down her throat!"

"Did you?" James asked, as Peter gave a snigger, and Sirius frowned deeply for a moment before deciding with a rather proud grin:

"Well yes, but so what? She liked it, I can tell you..."

"Not now, Padfoot." Remus pleaded rather half-heartedly. "I'm about to go and eat my dinner..."

"They all like it, I know they do! They can't resist me afterwards. Once you go Black you can never go back!"

Remus squeezed his eyes shut and tried to think of something else. But for some horrible reason all he could think of was Claudia Honeyduke. Sucking a lollipop.

The werewolf gave a shudder and wondered what on earth was wrong with teenagers these days. Then he shuddered again because that made him sound alarmingly similar to his father.

The other three Marauders disappeared off to grab dinner early some five minutes later, and Remus stubbornly insisted on finishing the second paragraph of his essay before following them. He heard the distinct sound of Madam Pince shrieking complaints at his friends as they left and wondered what they were doing wrong now and why the librarian hadn't come to shout at them earlier. He finished his paragraph in peace and quiet and felt quite tempted to simply stay and write another one. It was difficult to grab a bit of peace and quiet when one was friends with the likes of James Potter and Sirius Black. They were only capable of two possibly volumes: very loud or silent, and the latter only ever really occurred when they were sneaking through the castle under James' invisibility cloak, or when they were asleep.  
Even that wasn't entirely true, Remus realised with a heavy sigh, because Sirius could snore for England.

The werewolf set about packing away his homework into his school bag, sliding the half-written essay inside a hefty textbook to keep it from getting dog-eared and crumpled. Once he had cleared the desk he rose rather reluctantly to his feet, slinging the bag over one shoulder. For a moment he simply stood, enjoying the quiet, before he felt the distinct sensation of his stomach rumbling, which sped up his progress towards the library exit tenfold. As he weaved his way through the maze of vast bookcases, running an absent-minded finger across the spines of the rows and rows of books as he went, Remus wondered what was being served that evening down in the Great Hall. He was just musing upon the prospect of apple crumble and custard for pudding when the silence of the library around him was somewhat disturbed by a faint, pitiful sound that made the Gryffindor prefect stop in his tracks.

It was very faint, muffled even, but as he turned towards the source of the noise Remus had no doubt at all that it was the sound of somebody crying.

The werewolf sidled into another row of bookshelves and set about creeping towards the source of the noise. At the end of the aisle he flattened himself up against the shelves and, after a pause, peered around the corner at the lone desk that was set in a secluded little alcove, a favourite spot of his when he had been a first year because it was near a large shelf crammed full of Grade One Defence textbooks and was secluded enough for the purposes of hiding from friends, studying, plotting pranks and, after being the unwilling test dummy to a potion of Sirius' that had left him bald for some three hours until he hair had grown back, sulking. (Remus was quite convinced that his hair had never been the same since and was absolutely certain that it had grown back far thinner than before. He had not appreciated the lurid yellow bobble hat that Sirius had presented to him the following evening as way of an apology, especially when Sirius had insisted on pulling it right down over his face and declaring loudly that in the grand scheme of Remus' appearance it made a great improvement.)

Sat at the desk, her head buried in her arms upon the table, shock of blonde, frizzy hair in disarray as she sobbed dismally, was none other than Claudia Honeyduke.

For a long moment Remus simply stood there, peering around the bookcase at her, contemplating his bad luck. Because he knew within half a second that he was going to have to go and sit next to her, ask her very kindly what was wrong and perhaps offer her a tissue or something.

Because he was just too bloody nice for his own good.

He'd been expecting a first year having landed themselves in detention, or something equally as simple and unthreatening. Not Claudia bloody Honeyduke whose mere voice made him want to shudder, Claudia Honeyduke who stared at him as if she were about to pounce on him at any moment for no apparent reason whatsoever...

He allowed himself a brief moment to steel himself for what was to come, before stepping out from around the bookcase, shuffling his feet rather more than was necessary to let her know that he was there.

She didn't notice. She was sobbing much too hysterically and for a fleeting moment Remus considered using this fact to his advantage, turning tail and making a run for it. But instead he took another noisy step forward and called a little half-heartedly:

"Claudia...? Um...are you alright?"

There was a momentary pause in which he thought she might well not have heard him, before quite suddenly she sat up in her seat, her round, blotchy face growing somewhat murderous as she choked:

"Do I LOOK alright to you? DO I?"

Remus couldn't help it, he took a step backwards. He was just considering the fact that, despite his question being admittedly a stupid one, he felt somewhat put out to be shouted at in such a manner. He was just concluding that she was in some way related to a banshee when as abruptly as her fury had materialised it was gone again, her pink, tear-stained features softened and she gave a feeble sniff and observed:

"Oh Remus, it's you."

She was looking at him with those bizarrely predatory eyes now and he wanted to fidget, so instead he concentrated on plastering a smile onto his face.

"Yep...only me..." he was beginning to wring his hands together rather awkwardly, so he decided to shove them into his pockets. "I um...I heard you crying and I just thought...you know...I'd come and...and see if you were alright."

Claudia leant abruptly forward in her chair, eyes widening a little as she asked:

"Really?"

Remus carried on smiling until he realised that she meant this to be a proper question.

"Really." he assured her, giving his head a nod just to be clear, and she sighed dramatically and announced:

"I knew it! You're so, _so_ sweet! Did you know that?"

"Um..." Remus let his mouth hang open ever so slightly as he contemplated his next move. Did she really expect him to answer that? Because of course it sounded like a rhetorical question, but he was beginning to think that when it came to Claudia it was difficult to be certain about anything she said...

"Sit down." Claudia told him, and he knew it wasn't a mere suggestion.

"Um..." he said again, swallowing a lump in his throat that probably wasn't there in an attempt to make his voice work better. He didn't really want to sit down, for one thing that would involve sitting next to her and those alarming eyes of hers, and for another that would suggest they were going to have a conversation longer than the one which he had planned...

No indeed, it wouldn't be the Are You Alright? Sod Off I'm Fine! Alright Then, Bye that he had been hoping for.

She had gone back to burying her face in her arms, her sobbing growing louder and he forced himself to shuffle over and take a seat beside her. There he sat in awkward silence for a long minute before she abruptly sat up straight again, eyes upon him suddenly accusing.

"Do you think I'm a slut?" she asked bluntly, rather as if she had already decided that the answer was yes.

For a moment, Remus simply stared at her in alarm. What sort of a question was that? It wasn't fair, for starters. The entire school thought she was a slut, so if he said no she'd only accuse him of lying, and what boy honestly wanted to look a girl in the eyes, scary eat-you-alive eyes like Claudia's, no less, and tell her: _Yes, I do think you're a slut_? No boy, that's who.

"Um...well..."

"You do, don't you? I knew it..."

"No! No, I...I don't...obviously I don't..."

"You're lying!"

"I'm not! I'm really, really not...I...I don't think you're a slut, not...not at all..."

And again, the murderous expression disappeared from her face within the blink of an eye. She gave a woeful sniff, reaching to swipe the sleeve of her robes across her watery eyes and said:

"R...really? Y...you don't?"

Part of him wanted to admit, for her own good, that giving a boy a blow job for a lollipop was one of the sluttiest things he had ever heard of, but quite frankly Remus didn't, and probably never would, have the nerve to do it.

"I really don't." he agreed, giving his head a rather stiff nod.

"Really?" she breathed, eyes wide as if she had never heard such a wonderful thing in all her life, and he opened his mouth to dutifully mumble: _yes, really_, only for the words to stick in the back of his throat when she leant abruptly sideways towards him until their knees were knocking together under the table and she could announce: "I knew you wouldn't! I knew you'd understand. You're not like the others, you're...you know!"

Remus didn't know.

"You're so sweet!" she exclaimed, voice oddly high-pitched, which made him wince. It was the second time she had said this since he had happened across her. If she said it again he might not be able to suppress a shudder because a third occurrence probably identified it as a new catchphrase of sorts.

Just that thought alone made Remus shudder.

"It's true, you're not like the others...n...not at all they...they're all so mean! They're horrible! They laugh and stare at me in the corridors and...and...they won't...won't sit next to me at...at dinner or...or talk to me in the corridors...I...I just...!" Claudia simply couldn't finish her sentence, she slumped back down onto the desk with a wail and sobbed uncontrollably into her arms.

"I'm sure they'll get bored eventually." Remus reasoned awkwardly, not really at all used to crying girls. "They'll find something else to gossip about and then they'll forget that you...um...you know..."

Gave Tony Bell a blow job. In exchange for a lollipop.

Merlin, it really was the most awfully disgusting and shameful thing Remus had ever heard, in all his years at Hogwarts! As if anybody would truly ever forget that!

"No they won't!" Claudia wailed, sounding abruptly aggressive again. "You're lying! They won't forget it, they all think I'm a...that I'm a horrible slut and...and they all hate me! Every last one of them!"

"Oh I don't think they hate you." Remus theorized, recalling the manic look of glee upon Sirius' face when he had relayed the whole incident a short while earlier. "And...and even if they don't think that much of you...well, that could change, couldn't it?"

"Could it?" she hiccuped, sitting suddenly up to stare at him in wonder, and he gave a shrug.

"Well if everybody thinks you're a...a slut...well you don't have to act like one, do you? If you...if you don't act like one for long enough...well then maybe they'll change their minds!" He frowned deeply as he mused: "Perhaps they'll realise it was just a...a phase you were...you were going through..." he trailed off, thinking he sounded faintly ridiculous, but Claudia seemed to swell with sudden enthusiasm as she exclaimed:

"Can a person do that? Can a person change who they are...just like that?"

She looked desperate. Remus couldn't help but feel sorry for her. After all, the rest of the school was apparently treating her abysmally and she didn't really deserve it. Everybody made silly mistakes, after all, and no matter how disgusting the whole business was, she clearly regretted it now. She was by no means the sharpest quill in the box, in fact she was really rather dim and he doubted she had really thought Tony Bell's proposal through in the slightest. And anyway, long before any of this had happened there had been a saying about Claudia Honeyduke: She'd do anything for something sweet.

Claudia's parents owned and ran the sweetshop down in Hogsmeade, and apparently growing up above the shop in question had affected her somewhat dreadfully. Having a sweet tooth himself, Remus could not imagine how wonderful it would be to grow up surrounded by so many sweet treats. But apparently it wasn't in the least bit wonderful at all, indeed it was probably torture. Claudia's parents were massively strict about her intake of sweets; for one thing, they said, too many of them would rot their daughter's teeth and for another they made the sweets for their customers, not for the Honeydukes themselves. Consequently Claudia spent much of her time looking at the confectionaries that she adored but was forbidden to touch, and as soon as term began and she could disappear off to Hogwarts she would do all she could to stuff herself with sweets as often as possible whilst no parent was around to stop her.

That fact alone made Remus pity her massively. Even if she was without a doubt stir crazy, bordering on demented and quite frankly terrifying.

"Claudia you can be anything you want to be if you try hard enough." Remus found himself telling her, even though he wasn't sure he believed it for a second. He'd heard this supposed fact from a whole range of people over the years: his mother, his father, Professor Dumbledore, Madam Pomfrey, James, Sirius, Lily...

It was utter rubbish. Some people, Remus were convinced, dark creatures like him and probably nutcases like Claudia Honeyduke were destined to abject failure in the grand scheme of life. It didn't really matter what they did, it was just bound to happen. Trying hard didn't have a whole lot to do with it, really. That was just something you did to try and convince yourself you had some vague hope.

But of course there was no point telling this to Claudia. She'd probably not understand. Or she'd cry even harder than she was now. Or she'd hit him. Hex him. Repeatedly...

A moment later Remus fervently wished that he had attempted to explain all of this to Claudia because making her cry, hit him and hex him repeatedly would have been massively preferable to what happened next.

She stared at him first, which made him fidget and was alarming enough really...

Then she let out an odd sort of squeal that made his stomach lurch uncomfortably...

And then she threw her arms around him, her grip upon him so tight that it knocked the air from his lungs.

Remus couldn't help it, he drew in a gasp in alarm that turned into a rather odd squeak of his own.

"You're so sweet!" she exclaimed, much to his horror because that was the third time she had uttered those cringe-worthy words. "You believe in me!"

He...what?

"I knew you would!"

She knew...what? Something he didn't, that was for sure...

"Because you're so sweet!"

Bloody hell, she'd said it again, Remus realised numbly. At least she had her face buried in his shoulder. If he kept very still she might just stay there and he would be save the alarming experience of looking at her face with so few precious inches between the two of them...

But then she sat back a little, their eyes meeting. Remus concentrated hard on not leaning backwards in his chair in a vain attempt to get away from her.

"You'll help me, won't you Remus?" she said, and yet again Remus didn't think it was a question. That probably didn't matter though, the werewolf realised, because he had absolutely no idea what it was that she wanted him to help her with. If it was a question he had no idea how to answer it. Then she said: "You'll help me change their minds, won't you? You believe in me, don't you?"

Remus opened and closed his mouth a few times, only to find himself completely and utterly tongue-tied. He rather wanted to beg her to let go of him because her grip upon him was alarmingly tight and one of her hands was sliding worriedly close to the hair at the nape of his neck...

Before he could wade through the panic in his mind to come up with some form of action, he felt her fingers sliding into his hair and he managed to breath:

"Claudia what...what're you..."

"Of course you do!" she decided on his behalf, fingers suddenly grasping hold of a clump of his hair in a rather threatening manner, causing his eyes to widen, his heart hammering in his chest.

"I um...I don't know what...what you're talking about, but..."

Claudia grinned and Remus instantly forgot what it was that he was attempting to say. She was leaning so close now that she had practically slipped herself onto his lap. He'd never had a girl sit on his lap before. Except Lily at the start of term when they had been forced to squeeze into a single carriage with the other prefects when making their way from Hogsmeade station up to the school. But obviously Lily was his friend and she didn't really count...

He wasn't quite sure that Claudia would count, either, because there were a whole load of girls he could think of that he'd quite like to have sitting in his lap, amongst _other_ things, but Claudia wasn't one of them. Absolutely not.

Claudia really wasn't very pretty, to be perfectly honest. She had wild looking frizzy hair and her eyes frightened him and her forehead was too big...

She had big boobs, though. They were a bit like boulders, the striped neckline of her school jumper were stretched across them...

They were looking especially big right now because she was leaning towards them and they were very nearly pressed against his arm. Remus wanted to move his arm somewhere else, but he wasn't quite sure where to put it.

He hurriedly decided to concentrate on where to put his eyes instead because he'd just caught himself looking at her boobs and he didn't really fancy her noticing...

He looked back up at her and was certain that she had noticed. He swallowed the lump that instantly formed in his throat and waited for his doom.

Her grin widened and she let out an abrupt, watery little giggle.

"Well that's not helping, is it?" she said, waggling her eyebrows at him in a manner that so reminded him of Sirius that he jumped back in his seat a little in alarm. Merlin, if Sirius could see him now...

"I don't know what you're talking about." he mumbled, and she giggled and told him:

"I don't know either, do I? I'm much too good now for all of that!"

Remus consented to a vague chuckle as she dissolved into laughter, hand slipping further into his hair.

"Seriously, though." she said, expression abruptly stern again, "I know we'll make it all better! We'll show them, won't we? We'll show them all I'm not a slut! I'm better than that, that's what you said isn't it?"

Remus wasn't even slightly sure, but he suspected disagreeing with her now would be fatal, so he forced himself to smile a little and tell her:

"That's what I said."

"You're so sweet!" she exclaimed, leaving him to barely suppress a shudder, only for him to go rigid in a mixture of horror and confusion when she declared: "I knew you would help me get through this, Remus. Because I can feel it, you know. You and me, we're..._connected_!"

"We are?"

"Of course we are! You can't ignore it, a feeling like that, and that's how I knew you would understand and be so sweet and help me! It's going to be so great, I'm so excited!"

"You are?"

"Of course I am! Are you excited?"

"Um..."

"Of course you are! Of course it isn't going to be easy to start with, is it? Because everybody is going to talk about us and say the most horrible things! But we just can't listen to them, Remus, we just can't! Because you know they're wrong about me, don't you? And you're so sweet! We're going to have such a wonderful time, I just know it! You're going to be the best boyfriend a girl like me could wish for!"

Remus felt as if she had just thrown a glass of cold water in his face as the reality of the situation began to sink in...

"B...boyfriend?" he managed to stutter, completely horrified that she seemed to have come to such a ludicrous conclusion...

And before he could think to do or say anything, she lunged forwards, yanking his head forward until she could crush her lips against his with such force that he was pretty certain he had just chipped a couple of his teeth in the progress...

The world swam nauseatingly around him, and Remus wished at that very moment that the ground would open up and swallow the pair of them.

And then preferably spit her back out again.


End file.
